The present invention relates to a cutting mill having a horizontally positioned rotor carrying cutting tools. The rotor is positioned in a housing which consists of an upper part and a lower part and which forms a cutting chamber. The housing carries stator cutting tools which interact with the cutting tools of the rotor. The upper part of the housing is hingedly connected with the lower part about an axis parallel to the axis of the rotor. A replaceable sieve is removably located in the lower part of the housing.
In reconditioning processes, cutting mills are used for the purpose of fragmenting solid matter to yield a particle size and particle form necessary for further processing. By means of such cutting mills, primarily manufacturing scraps, residues, damaged new products and by-products, such as for example, synthetics, leather, wood for fragmented into granulated material or particles similar to granulated material for the purpose of reuse. Moreover, the cutting mill not only carries out fragmentation, but also separates the resulting particles according to size.
The replacement of the parts of the cutting mill which are subject to wear and the preparation necessary for changing over to other materials or other particles is, in the case of known cutting mills of the above mentioned type, relatively time consuming. In addition, the replacement of the sieve is relatively troublesome. In the case of large cutting mills, there is also a certain danger of injuries to the operating personnel. When the sieve requires replacement, it must be pulled outwardly from the lower part of the housing in the peripheral direction of the rotor portion which is located in the lower part of the housing, and must be reinserted in the opposite direction. In addition, the cutting chamber in the region of the sieve is not readily accessible, so that, in the case of the processing of certain materials or during the changeover to another material, the necessary cleaning of the cutting chamber is rendered more difficult.
In the case of known cutting mills, a precise adjustment of the cutting tools, particularly a precise adjustment of the gap between the cutting tools carried by the rotor and the sieve is accomplished at relatively large expense. In many cases, therefore, the cutting mill is not operated with correctly adjusted tools, either because the operator does not undertake the effort to obtain a correct adjustment, or because he is unable to carry out a precise adjustment. The consequence of an inexact adjustment is that the particles do not have the desired size, shape and/or surface structure and also that energy consumption is larger than in the case of correctly adjusted tools. The greater energy requirement not only increases the cost of the operation, but also frequently results in an undesirable development of heat in the cutting mill which may cause an impairment of the characteristics of the obtained particles.